Busy!

We've had a busy 24+ hours! Last night we went to our friends' house for the evening. The kids played and the adults got to talk and catch up in relative peace and quiet. It was blowing sheets of rain this morning, so Kellen's second soccer practice was rained out, so we all just played this morning. Kellen built a train and Addie read books with Geof and learned to play dominoes with me. Ellary was the designated "scrumbler," and it was her job to come destroy the domino board after each game (she often did her job a bit too early).

The Spooky Old Tree is a favorite of Addie's - a real nail-biter!
Kellen thinks he's such a big guy now that he's 5 and almost ready for kindergarden - but he still wears his foot-jams! He's not so big!

At 1:30 I took Addie and friend Cailey to a birthday party for another of Addie's friends (Happy 4th Birthday Sarah!). The girls were all princesses (though Addie wasn't participating in the dress-up part - she took off her princess dress as soon as we got there) and had a very lovely tea party (which Addie participated in very much!). Addie enjoyed pouring herself cup after cup of tiny tea from an adorable tiny teapot. And of course there was cake, so that made her afternoon.

The birthday girl in her elegant princess gown (she's sitting!)
Addie pours some tea.
Please Addie, can you pose like a princess on the royal throne?

Addie did wear her crown for most of the party - she wore it the wrong way, but I was happy she wore it!
Princesses gather around a beautiful 'tea party' cake.

See her little fingers taking some tea? :)

We went straight from there back to Cailey's house, where our Sunday school class date night was underway. So lots more friends to visit with for the evening! Geof and I stayed there for most of the evening, sneaking out for a little while to buy paint and supplies for our living room project. All three of our kids came home exhausted tonight and fell right into bed. Too bad tonight of all nights we roll the clocks forward and lose that hour of sleep. Which I guess means I should get to sleep. :)

Her Favorite Thing

This little one LOVES being in the tub. When she's upstairs she always makes a "bea-line" for the bathroom and stands at the tub banging on it with her little hand yelping and, recently, saying "ba-da, ba-da" (I'm translating that as "bathtime bathtime"). She will turn back and look at me with those big blue eyes and a sly little grin, like "come on mom, you know you want to give me a bath!" It's hard to resist not filling up the tub and plopping her right in every time she does it. Today I gave in to her begging and gave her a bath in the middle of the day, just for fun. We've all had a rough couple days and she was such a trooper yesterday that she deserved it. I took some pictures since I realized I have no tub pictures of her since her first bath 9 months ago! Shameful! After looking through the pics I took, I think she likes the tub because there is so much to chew on.

After her bath Addie and I did her hair, and it stayed like this all day.

EB's new "updo"

An investment well worth it

The best $30 we ever spent...
These tired, worn, well-loved shoes are approaching 2 years old!

On the Mend

Blog's been quite for a day or so while Geof and I have battled a very nasty bug. Not sure what it was - felt like flu, Geof thinks food poisoning. Anyway, after sleeping all day yesterday I am finally up and about and Geof went in to the office again. I wasn't aware of much going on yesterday, but I think the kids did a good job of entertaining themselves while Geof and I were sick. I found all these funny pictures saved on the computer desktop, evidence that Kellen played with the photo booth yesterday:

This morning we found they had taken over the stairs playing "class picture day." Kellen set up a pretend automatic camera to take pictures of all their friends.

I guess they learned to be somewhat self-sufficient yesterday, because Kellen just came in and said I didn't need to get them a snack. They had taken care of it themselves, setting themselves up with juice and crackers all on their own.

So says Kellen

Upon seeing an Easy Button at Staples last night:

" Mom! I've been wanting one of these for years!"

Too Funny!

Kellen came to the table this morning holding a sign he had made that said "U R Allowed to come in." He said he was going to hang it on the front door. We kind of laughed and said that probably wasn't a good idea because then strangers might think they were allowed to come into our house. He ran back upstairs and within seconds came back and said, "well I made another 'don't' sign to go with it." This changes EVERYTHING! Now the signs are perfect to hang on the front door:

"U R ALLOWED TO COME IN"

"NO GUNS"

(Kellen is very interested in don't signs that you often see on stores - signs that indicate no smoking, no eating or drinking, etc., so I'm sure that's where he picked up the "no guns" sign from. The last time we were at our favorite museum, he studied the "don't" signs on their door and said, "look, those signs mean no smokes, no hamburgers, no coffee and no guns.")

Dynamite - Handle with Care

Today was Kellen's first soccer practice. He's been looking forward to today for months! He was suited up and ready to go well before it was time to leave, but thankfully practice was at 12:30 so we didn't have too long to wait around this morning. I think he looks like such a big kid in his soccer uniform! His team is called the Dynamite, though the way it works with his age group is just to have practice for the first half of the session and then a "game" with his own teammates for the second half. So mostly just a mass of little guys in red shirts running after a ball. :) I'd say the first half of the practice went well, with Kellen working on trapping the ball and dribbling, but during the game portion Kellen got discouraged and spent much of the time just wandering around the field and crying. He wanted a chance to kick the ball and didn't seem to understand that he had to be aggressive and go after it - that's Kellen for ya. He was also really worried that A) he didn't know how to play and B) his soccer ball was going to get dirty. I felt really bad for him being the one kid of the team standing out there crying, but what are you going to do? We're going to try the next 7 practices and see how it goes. Then maybe he'll go back to gymnastics... :) This whole soccer culture is just not for me (yep - even at 5 there were some of those parents...).